IBM's Watson app whips up Big Data in the kitchen

Jun 30, 2014

IBM's 'Watson' computing system at the IBM T.J. Watson Research Center on January 13, 2011 in Yorktown Heights, New York

Putting a chef's hat on its Watson supercomputer, IBM and the magazine Bon Appetit unveiled a new initiative Monday that seeks to use Big Data for gastronomy.

A new app unveiled in test version called "Chef Watson with Bon Appetit" aims at helping cooks "draw on Watson's advanced cognitive capabilities to create entirely new recipes and gastronomic combinations that have previously never been conceived," IBM said.

The kitchen becomes the new proving ground for Watson, which has been working on fighting cancer and other medical applications, after a successful challenge on the TV game show "Jeopardy."

The new app is part of the Chef Watson program introduced this year by IBM and the Institute of Culinary Education.

Mike Rhodin, senior vice president at IBM Watson Group said the goal "is to help people discover the potential of cognitive computing systems."

"These systems can understand vast amounts of data, compounds, and formulas as well as learn from interactions with people and information, in a far more intuitive way," Rhodin said in a statement.

Bon Appetit, which tested some recipes using Chef Watson, offered a few examples of the recipes cooked up with the help of the supercomputer.

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